Forever Young:

Memories of Dylan at 85

by Hillel Schenker

The first Friday night after I arrived on Kibbutz Barkai on November 22^nd, 1963, the day of Kennedy’s assassination, they held a local talent show. We were very young, just 21 and 18, and we introduced ourselves to the kibbutz by singing two songs we had brought with us from America, “Blowing in the Wind”, the first performance of the song in Israel, and “You Can Tell the World About This” by Bob Gibson and Hamilton Camp. Gibson was the one who had introduced the world to Joan Baez at the Newport Folk Festival, while Joanie was the one who introduced Dylan to the same audience a year later.

Two years later, in 1965, in the days before there was an occupation and when the labor movement still dominated, Nava, Uri and I sang “The Times They Are A-Changin” at the May 1^st celebration at the regional auditorium in nearby Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, with red flags flying all around.

As Bob celebrates (?) his 85^th birthday, I’m trying to remember the first time I heard of him. Was it because of Peter, Paul and Mary’s hit version of “Blowing in the Wind”? All I know is that I was one of the only 5,000 people who bought his first album, titled simply “Bob Dylan”. It had only two original songs, one of them being “Song to Woody”, one of the three songs dedicated to Woody Guthrie written by the “Broadsides” topical songwriters Dylan, Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton. And I bought it at Sam Goody’s.

Like seemingly everyone else around, after 8 years of piano lessons, at the age of 15 I had switched from piano to a guitar. With a short detour through a harmonica, which frustrated me because when you have a harmonica in your mouth you can’t sing or talk. Though later Dylan taught me that you could hang it on that thing around your neck.

And with all his powerful protest songs on his next album, “Masters of War”, “Only a Pawn in the Game”, “With God on Our Side”, “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”, and of course “Blowing in the Wind” and the March on Washington, he really became the voice of my generation (though apparently he hated the label).

I was intrigued when he visited his friend Bob Yellin from The Greenbriar Boys who was living on Kibbutz Ein Dor, and heard a claim that he even considered joining the kibbutz.

And then in 1987 I finally saw his first performance in Israel, in Yarkon Park in north Tel Aviv. The back-up group was…Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and they were great. The warmup singer was Roger McGuinn, lead singer of “The Birds”, who sang their powerful version of “Tambourine Man” that showed Bob what electrifying his music could do. And then came Dylan, who was…terrible. Simply not trying to communicate to the audience.

A few years later he came to Tel Aviv again, and compensated for the first show by being very communicative, giving the audience what they wanted to hear. He came a third time and once again sang virtually unrecognizable versions of his songs.

Still he communicated best through his records.

I was one of his audience that didn’t have a problem when he went electric. I had always had a split music personality, part folk and protest raised on “The People’s Song Book”, “Sing Out!” and “Broadsides”. And part rock and roll, that I was introduced to when Alan Freed came from Cleveland to New York to introduce us white teenagers to R & B. to Little Richard and Fats Domino (both piano men) and Chuck Berry (guitar). I even asked Theodore Bikel when he came once to Israel if it was true that Pete Seeger had tried to disconnect Dylan from the electricity. Theo’s response was “I was there, and it never happened.”

And of course, there were the songs, from the early protest songs, through “Like a Rolling Stone”, “Chimes of Freedom” (sung by Bruce Springsteen in Minneapolis) “Lay Lady Lay” “Desolation Row (Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues), one of my favorites, “If today was not an endless highway” (Odetta has a beautiful version), “All Along the Watchtower”, “I Shall Be Released”, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”, “Maggie’s Farm” (Jimmy Carter’s favorite song), “Subterranean Homesick Blues” (you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows), “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and yes, “Forever Young”. On Israeli radio they love to play some of his love songs, both his versions, covers and also Hebrew versions, songs like “Make You Feel My Love”, “Sarah”, “Girl from the North Country” and “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”. I myself once performed “If Not For Me” in a set I did at the Tzavta Club in Tel Aviv back in 1971 when I was still a singer-songwriter, before the Yom Kippur War came along and changed my life.

I am definitely in the camp that believes he deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature. And as he celebrates his 85^th birthday, I’m discovering many songs from his prolific career that I had never heard before. Even a great version of Eric Anderson’s wonderful “Thirst Boots”.

And there’s the movie, “A Complete Unknown”. Coming out of the theater, someone said “wasn’t most of that a lie?” I answered he really did visit Woody Guthrie in the hospital, but Pete Seeger wasn’t there, and didn’t take him home afterwards. Timothee Chalamet did a good job. Go Knicks!

But there is only one Dylan.

Who is Dylan for you?

Hillel Schenker is a journalist based in Tel Aviv. He’s co-editor of Palestine Israel Journal.